


de profundis

by erebones



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Blood, Blow Jobs, Friends With Benefits, M/M, Rituals, this is way tamer than the tags make it seem
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-23
Updated: 2018-03-23
Packaged: 2019-04-07 01:22:09
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,856
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14069838
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/erebones/pseuds/erebones
Summary: Fjord watches Molly pray over his swords. Then he takes a turn.





	de profundis

**Author's Note:**

  * For [TheCohort](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheCohort/gifts).



> Minor spoilers for episode 11. Title is from Oscar Wilde's letter of the same name.

_Love is a sacrament that should be taken kneeling._ Oscar Wilde

 

He has been given permission—but still he hovers, loathe to disrupt the weighty atmosphere of their shared room. In the center between their cots, Molly kneels. He has removed his opulent coat and spread it out with the lining up, the deep blue reflecting in the candlelight where row upon row of tiny embroidered quarter-moons shine out of the fabric.

One by one, Molly lays out his swords. They’re not unlike his own falchion, slightly curved with wickedly sharp tips, but longer and slimmer, like rapiers, capped by identical hilts inlaid with jewels and enchantments. When Molly grips them, his hands are protected by the sweeping crosspieces as they curve and twist back to the pommels. Right now, he ignores that protection, reaching instead to gently slice the edge of his thumb on one of the blades. And the other.

_Drip. Drip._

The room is illuminated. Fjord shields his eyes from the glare, and when he looks again, Molly has bent all the way over, forehead to floor, hands flat against the dusty floorboards. He’s murmuring something that Fjord can’t quite make out. He leans in, and the hair on the back of his neck lifts as the sound of whispered Infernal crackling in the back of Molly’s throat.

Time stretches out like unspun wool, carding through Fjord’s mind, laced with silver-bright filaments of magic and unfamiliar worship. Brimstone coats his nose and throat, placating him. By the time Molly is done, Fjord has sunk to his haunches nearby, just out of the immediate circle of light created by the swords. Molly bows one more time, the tips of his horns scraping the floor, and slowly he sits up. By increments the light is dimmed, and then goes out entirely.

Darkness.

“Well!” Molly chirps, startling Fjord out of his contemplation. The tiefling sticks his thumb in his mouth and sucks, looking for all the world like a child with a sweet. When he pops it out, it seems to Fjord’s dark-attuned vision that the paper-thin slice has disappeared. “That was that. Not very exciting, like I told you.”

“Wasn’t lookin’ for excitement,” Fjord says with a shrug. He shifts his weight back into his heels, stretching out his calves. “Just tryin’ to learn all I can.”

“And was it educational?” His tone is light, but Molly’s gaze is intent on Fjord’s face as he traces the polished hilt of one of the swords where it lays on the ground. He makes no move to wrap them up just yet, and Fjord wonders if the ritual is quite as finished as he thought.

“It was.” He nods, pressing thanks into the contours of his face. “I appreciate you lettin’ me watch.”

“No trouble at all.” Molly still watches him, a strange half-smile caught in the corner of his mouth. Fjord thinks he sees a glint of teeth as Molly reaches up to fondle the heart-shaped pendant hanging low in the open V of his ruffled shirt. “You were very polite, I do appreciate it. Most people would be alarmed, I think, to witness such an… event.”

“I’m not most people.”

“So I’m starting to see.” His crimson eyes drag away, finally, but reluctant, like he’s tearing himself away from a delicious meal, and he begins to put away his swords. The stick of incense he’d lit earlier is extinguished in a cloud of blue smoke and crumbled ash. The swords are wrapped carefully in silk scarves, then in Molly’s coat.

Still Fjord lingers, settled now into the pleasant stretch. He finds he enjoys this perspective of the world. Molly seems larger than life from this angle, ponderous and bright, color-wicked at the edges when he relights the blown-out candle. Fjord doesn’t remember when that happened.

“It’s a precarious line you walk,” Fjord drawls thoughtfully. Molly pauses in the act of shrugging off his shirt, then completes the motion, letting the fabric pool on the floor. His feet are bare, trousers rolled up above slim ankles. When he turns, his tail lashes gently in a circle, punctuating the motion like his coat would were it hanging from his shoulders. “Between worship and… destruction.”

Molly tips his head curiously, catching gilt where the candlelight touches his jeweled horns. “We all walk that line, I think. Some more than others, maybe.” He paces forward until he stands but a handspan away, hand idly tracing one of many spiderwebbing scars on his torso. He is lit from behind, all shadow, licked with color at the edges. The pendant is a subtle silver glow where it rests in the hollow of his sternum. Tinged with the magic of the ritual, perhaps. “Are you afraid, Fjord?”

Molly’s eyes glow red, his horns curving in sharp silhouette. His tail a twitching counterpoint. Fjord should be afraid, perhaps. But he can smell patchouli and warm stone, woodsmoke, travel sweat. It’s Molly, in spite of everything.

“No.” He lifts his chin and shifts his weight again, into his knees. They hit the floor with a gentle double-thud. “Should I be?”

“Only if you want to be.”

Warm fingers graze the edge of Fjord’s jaw, and he shivers. Molly’s touch tingles with unspent arcane energy, sizzling along his neatly-kept claws like static. It grounds him in the moment, keeps him anchored here instead of spiralling off into his own head, worrying about Nott, about Caleb, about the strange and unexpected darkness they’d unfolded together. Fjord closes his eyes and breathes in the tang of sulphur.

“Look at me,” Molly whispers. His voice is lined with the dark crackle of Infernal, almost like an accent, or another voice layered beneath, enshrouded. “I want you here. I want you to tell me this is okay.”

Fjord licks his dry lips. “Not exactly what I had in mind when I asked to see your sword ritual, but I ain’t complaining.”

Molly snickers. “You’re terrible.”

“Not as terrible as you, devilman.” Fjord grins wide against Molly’s thumb—the tusks he once had were filed down a long time ago, but his incisors are nothing to sneeze at, and for a moment he’s tempted to draw blood. But there’s been enough of that in recent days, so he just lets his teeth hover there, tantalizing, at the edge of one curved claw. “You done prayin’ or are you looking for an assistant?”

Molly hums thoughtfully, so low it’s nearly a growl. The swords have been wrapped up and laid on the bed, but Fjord can still make out the faint glow that ignites beneath the fabric. “Depends,” the tiefling murmurs, “on how well you harmonize.”

One lace at a time, Molly’s free hand undoes his trousers. Fjord digs his fingers into the tops of his own thighs, pinned by Molly’s gaze, and leans forward.

There’s something earthy and primal about this that transcends the knell of magic. An act as old a time, nearly, another link of trust forged between them like a delicate chain as Molly drags him down, down onto his cock. It hits the back of his throat and Fjord gags a moment before swallowing, determined, nose shoved against Molly’s curls. The brimstone smell is stronger here, tinged with sweat and incense, rushing into his nose as he pulls back with a weak cough.

“You don’t have to—” Molly starts, but it breaks apart into a whimper as Fjord firms his lips around the head. The texture is a little different than he’s used to, and for a fleeting moment he wonders if Molly’s cock looks different, looks… _devilish._ But he’s got the rhythm now, and it catches him up in its grasp, driving him toward the inevitable conclusion. He doesn’t want to play around with Molly, not here, not now—there is an urgency to it, spurred by the muted glow of two swords and the fire blazing in Molly’s eyes.

“Fuck, you’re good at this.”

Fjord smiles around Molly’s dick. Sharp teeth make for a lot of practice, he would say, were he not fellating his friend within an inch of his life. He draws back, slurping loudly, and tongues the slit as Molly swears in Infernal and grips the base to steady it.

“I’m close,” he whispers, low and guttural. The nape of Fjord's neck tingles again, rife sensation running up and down his spine, and he opens his mouth and his throat and takes Molly to the hilt.

He doesn’t taste him, when he spends, but he can feel it. The little tickle in his throat, the clench of Molly’s free hand in his hair, holding him there. Fjord holds his breath and lets him. And, little by little, at last he withdraws and sits back on his heels, warm in the chest with accomplishment.

Like a doll whose strings have been cut, Molly stumbles back and sags to the mattress, trousers still open and cock hanging out. The swords beam brightly in their wrappings beside him and go out, for good this time. Chest heaving, gleaming with sweat and smeared with color, Molly reaches out wordlessly and crooks a finger at him.

Fjord goes, shuffling on his knees. It only seems polite. Molly huffs at him and grabs his collar, drags him in for a hot, open-mouthed kiss, wet and sloppy and tinged with salt.

“Fuck,” Molly blurts again and lays back. His ribs expand and contract like a bellows with every breath. “Come here, you bloody brilliant—”

It’s clumsy and quick. Fjord is strung taut already, vibrating, nuzzling eagerly into Molly’s laughing mouth. Molly is loose-limbed from orgasm, but his fingers are still clever, working open the slit in Fjord’s breeches and wrapping around his cock. It only takes a short while, grunting and rutting together, before Fjord shoves his face into the crook of Molly’s neck and groans out his release.

He comes to himself a short time later. Molly has moved the swords to the floor at the foot of the bed, well away from being kicked or jostled, and is now moving about the room without a stitch on. He tugs Fjord’s boots off one by one, swearing under his breath at the effort required, and crawls onto the mattress beside him. It’s a tight fit, two large men on a modest bed, but neither of them make a move to separate. Instead Fjord hooks an arm around Molly’s waist and cinches him close, craning in blindly for a kiss.

Molly gives it to him, smiling. “Aren’t you just the sweetest thing?”

“Mmf. Only occasionally.”

“I won’t tell the others.” Molly winks and snuggles in close. “Thank you for your help with the… ritual.”

Fjord shuts his eyes and smiles. “It was certainly… enlightening.”

There’s a pause, then a muffled snort and a shift as Molly settles himself, horns well away from Fjord’s face. “Shut up and go to sleep, before I change my mind about letting you stay.”

Fjord just huffs at him and stills, quieting his mind for sleep. As he slips away, the faint glow of silver follows him, haunting, crystalline as a far-away bell. 

**Author's Note:**

> written for danko, who came up with this idea as we watched cr last night!


End file.
